Challenges
by Jennistar1
Summary: My response to fanfic challenges posted on 'Where the Fire Lily Grows' website! Most humourous, some just plain fluff :P
1. Chapter 1

Written in response to this fanfic challenge on 'Where the Fire Lily Grows':

**Written in response to this fanfic challenge on 'Where the Fire Lily Grows':**

Summary: Maerad takes a midnight walk through Innail and finds Cadvan doing the same thing.

Requirements:

-The way Maerad discovers Cadvan is by tripping and falling on top of him.  
-They can't kiss, but they come very, very close.  
-Cadvan has to pin Maerad up against a wall.  
-It has to end with Cadvan saying, "That was quite the performance."

Thank you, adrengoddess, for giving me this smutt!! And yes, the characters are OTT. 

**NB: I don't own these characters. I do, however, own 'The Frisky Ferrets'!  
**

Darkness in Innail. Maerad trod carefully but swiftly towards her destination, keeping her eyes out for predators on the sidelines who might try and steal the precious object she had on her person. Far away, but getting closer, she could hear shouts and strains of music which floated through the air, enticing her.

In fact, she was so intent on her destination that she forgot her wariness.

Her foot caught on something soft, she stumbled and fell, and a pair of warm arms grabbed her around the middle to prevent her from crashing to the ground.

"Got you, you little thief!" said a familiar voice, and then she felt herself being hauled up and mercilessly pushed against a nearby wall.

It was only then that she realised her captor was Cadvan. She must have tripped over him sitting in the darkness, and now he had her pinned against the wall.

And he looked _really_ pssed off.

_Curses,_ she thought. _He's found out._

"Hello," she said in her best husky voice. "Fancy seeing - "

But her seductive methods were lost on Cadvan, who was busy patting her down.

"All right," he said finally. "Confess, fiend. Where is it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she managed as nonchalently as possible.

"Don't try the sweet, innocent Maerad with me," warned Cadvan. "I know you took my concert ticket!"

The very concert, Maerad thought gloomily, which she was now missing.

"Who says I did?" she asked guardedly.

"Hem," replied Cadvan, now on his hands and knees, taking off her shoes and feeling inside them for the ticket. "And Saliman. Plus everyone else who saw you enter my room this afternoon."

"I knew I should have bribed them," Maerad mumbled, then added, when Cadvan cursed over not finding anything in her shoes, "You'll never get it this way."

He eyed her suspiciously through the gloom.

"Oh no? What do I have to do to get it then?"

Maerad grinned evilly.

"Kiss me," she said.

Cadvan's eyes went wide and he stood up sharply.

"_No._ Oh _no._ _No_, Maerad, I'm not falling for that again!"

Maerad's look was all innocence.

"Don't know what you're saying," she said sweetly.

"Oh no? Well how about the time you decided to 'fall' into my arms?"

"I tripped over!"

"Maerad, we were standing on _level floorboards!_ Or the time when we both _somehow_ got locked in the same room?"

"Must have been fate."

"Or when you conveniently 'forgot' to tell me you were using the bathroom, and I walked straight in on you in the bath?"

"You couldn't stop staring then, could you?"

An impatient sigh.

"Maerad, give me the ticket."

"Kiss me first and I will."

Another sigh.

"All right, all right."

He leaned forward towards her and slipped his hands around her waist, tugging her forward so that their lips were barely inches away...

And then he drew back, with a cry of triumph.

"Got it!"

He waved the ticket in the air and Maerad let out a shriek.

"How did you get that?! I had it stuffed right up my - "

"Tricksy hands!" Cadvan said, grinning and wiggling said fingers. Maerad lunged at the ticket and he danced away, holding it up high so that she couldn't reach.

"Aw, c'mon Cadvan, give it me back!"

"Nope."

"Please..." Maerad put on her best 'I'm-really-cute' face, but Cadvan was unmoved.

"That won't work on me, you little thief!"

"Well I was only doing it to make you kiss me!"

"Oh, and 'The Frisky Ferrets' had nothing to do with it?"

Cadvan gestured out to where lights were sparkling and a noise like a hundred guinea-pigs being stepped on warbled into the night air.

"Oooh!" Maerad squealed in response to the screeching. "I love this song!"

She turned back to Cadvan and made sure her eyes were shining with tears.

"Oh no," Cadvan groaned.

"It's just - " Maerad whimpered. "It's just that I've n-never _seen_ 'The Frisky Ferrets' before, just heard p-people sing their songs, and I l-love them s-so much, and anyway you've seen them already - "

"Yes, but that was before they put in the Mongoose March!" Cadvan pleaded.

Maerad stared at him with tear-filled eyes, her puppy dog expression down pat.

"Curses," Cadvan groaned. "All right, take the stupid thing."

And he reached out to give Maerad the ticket.

Just as she took it, the screeching reached a high pitched tone, and a roaring applause broke out, followed by a voice that sounded like a ferret on helium, squeaking: "You've been great, guys, we'll see you next year!"

Maerad and Cadvan groaned - they had missed the whole concert. They glanced gloomily at each other, then down as the now worthless ticket.

"Well," Cadvan said in a resigned tone. "That was quite the performance."

The End!

NB: When preparing my own translation of The Treesong, I found Alison Croggon had made a grievous error - what she translated as 'the Winterking' was actually 'The Frisky Ferrets', so when Maerad says 'I think I fell in love with the Winterking', what she _actually_ means is - 'I think I fell in love with _The Frisky Ferrets._'  
Much confusion has naturally occurred over this.  
... :)

Read and review! Because you know you want to!


	2. Chapter 2

Pellinorfan11's challenge:

**Pellinorfan11's challenge:**

Summary:Maered and Cadvan are secretly meeting in the garden because they are lovers

They must lay down under a tree and kiss  
Someone must nearly find them  
Maered must tell Cadvan major news(i was thinking something like she's pregnant but it can be something funnier to like that she wants to cook mushrooms for him or something)  
(I had to steal this one)Cadvan must pin Maered to a wall  
At the end of the story they must in each others arms  
  
This is being written on the spot and you said it could be soap opera-ish Pellinorfan11 so here we are! And yes, the characters are DEFINITELY OOC!! Thanks to Pellinorfan11 for allowing me to use and abuse! :)

Oh, and I don't own 'em!!

The sun was smiling down on the lovers, the birds sang sweet melodies up above and the flowers nodded their heads in time to the tunes of nature - and, of course, everything was in soft vision and pretty yellow colours.

_The birds sing a song only we can hear  
In the garden of joy  
Where I sit with my Maerad  
Under the tree of loooooooove!_

Cadvan drew breath, which gave Maerad enough time to butt in before he went off on another verse.

"Oh Cadders, that's simply _wonderful!_ Although I think maybe 40 verses is a few too many..."

"Oh, but Maerad my sweet! I've thought of another one!"

Maerad sighed, but she liked being sung about, so let it go. She stared blankly up at the tree they were sitting under.

"All right sweetums, sing away!"

_I love my Maerad  
My Maerad is miiiiiine!  
And nobody knows it  
Yes Maerad is fiiiiiiiine!_

I've had enough of this, thought Maerad, so to distract Cadvan she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately.

"Oh Cadvan! Such music! Such lyrics! Oh _Cadvan!_"

"Oh _Maerad!_" he cried, and slobbered on her neck in what she supposed he thought was a seductive manner.

"Cadvan, my darling-poos," she said, once he had finished salivating on her. "I have something _frightfully_ important to tell you!"

"Oh really, my dear Maerad?"

"Yes, oh yes, Cadders, I truly have!"

"Then say it my dear, for we are lovers and nothing can tear us apart! No, not even the sun in the sky himself! Haha!"

He flung out his arms, almost hitting Maerad in the nose.

"Oh Maerad!" he cried joyfully. "Oh, isn't it a beautiful day! The birds, the flowers, the strangely warm, soft, slightly blurred scene! Oh, it almost makes me want to - _siiiiiiiing - !_"

"None of that!" Maerad snapped hastily, before he went off on one again. "Dear, dear Cadders, do listen!"

"Oh yes, Maerad, I shall listen to every word that comes out of your heavenly lips!"

"Good, because - "

"I shall hang on your every word like a holy man listening to his lord!"

"Yes, all right, but - "

"Every word you speak shall be like treacle in my ears!"

"That's very nice, but I - "

"I shall count every moment that I cannot hear your voice as a moment wasted!"

"_CADVAN!_"

Maerad leapt up in her rage, and Cadvan drew back against the tree, whimpering.

"Y - Yes, snookums?"

Maerad stamped her foot on the floor.

"Cadders, darling, I love you very much, but somehow you have become _the most insufferable lover I have ever met!_"

There was silence.

Cadvan's bottom lip trembled.

"Y - You mean you d - don't like my s - singing?"

"No! I mean, yes, I - Oh Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato (A/N: inside joke!), Cadders, please don't cry..."

"You're breaking up with me!" Cadvan wailed.

"No, no, I'm not, I just - well - oh Cadders, do you _have_ to be so effeminate? What happened to that grim, sexy, mysterious gentleman I knew? That's who I fell in love with, not this ponce who floats around gardens singing songs about daffodils and puts his hair up in curlers every night! And _that's_ what I wanted to tell you!"

There was a crash in the undergrowth behind, and Cadvan leapt with a dramatic shriek into Maerad's arms.

"They've found us! Now they shall know of our forbidden love!"

"Not if I can help it," Maerad said, and dragged Cadvan through the garden into the cloisters beyond, where there was thankfully no one around.

They stood for a moment, catching their breath, then Maerad turned to Cadvan, expecting to see syrupy devotion dribbling from his eyes.

But something had changed. There was a deep, rough, and yes _sexy_ darkness in his eyes now.

"Cadders?" she said uncertainly.

"All that running got my pulse going," he said in a growl which was so far on the other side of effeminate that it was almost right next to it. (Work that one out!)

"Oh - " Maerad started, but he had already lunged towards her and had her pinned up against the wall, kissing her so hard that she forgot, for that brief moment, where she was, who she was, even _what_ she was.

He broke away roughly, leaving her shaking with passion.

"Is this what you want, my dear?"

It took all Maerad's efforts to mutter,

"Y - yes..."

"Then this is what you shall have, my love!" And with an almost crazed demonic laugh, he yanked her into his arms and kissed all her cares away.

Fin

Hee! :) This was written on the spot so…Anyway, review!! Did I make ya larf?


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